Stockton East Water District: State water board ignores everyone but themselves

Tuesday

Jan 31, 2017 at 11:18 AM

By Stockton East Water District

Sustainable Groundwater Management Act

SGMA is a three-bill legislation package enacted by the legislature in 2014 to form local agencies to manage their own groundwater basins based on their regional, environmental, and economic needs. This legislation was driven by the need to address critical over-drafting of California’s groundwater. SGMA encourages groundwater recharge — which can only be implemented when surface water is available. SGMA outlined a timeframe of two years for the Department of Water Resources to adopt groundwater management regulations, and 3 years (by June 30, 2017) for local agencies to form the Groundwater Sustainability Agencies to manage their groundwater locally. After July 1, 2017, the State Water Resources Control Board (Water Board or Board) takes on the responsibility of enforcing the groundwater management regulations, if local agencies cannot.

Substitute Environmental Document

The Board is currently updating the 2006 Water Quality Control Plan for the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary, also known as the Bay Delta Plan. The Bay Delta Plan identifies beneficial uses of water in the Bay Delta, water quality objectives for the reasonable protection of those beneficial uses, and a program of implementation for achieving the water quality objectives. The Board decided that the only tool available is to increase flows into the Delta.

The Board released a Substitute Environmental Document which described three unimpaired flow regimes (40 percent, 50 percent, or 60 percent) for the Tuolumne, Merced, and Stanislaus Rivers (Phase 1). The SED settles on 40 percent of unimpaired flow in the three rivers from February to June to provide more water for the salmon fisheries and assumes the loss to diverters (municipalities and agriculture) would be made up by pumping more groundwater. A draft plan for the Calaveras, Mokelumne, Consumnes, and American Rivers assumes similar unimpaired flow regimes (Phase 2).

The board’s dismissal of legislation

The SED states that the economic impact of pumping groundwater to offset the loss of surface water from the Bay Delta Plan would be “significant and unavoidable”. This contradicts the intent and implementation of SGMA. If the 40 percent unimpaired flow were to be implemented, there would not be any water available for groundwater recharge and conjunctive uses. The groundwater basins levels would continue to decline, resulting in deeper pumping levels and poorer water quality.

The Water Board’s proposal to update the Bay Delta Plan would remove local agencies’ ability to manage water resources. This further contradicts with the SGMA intent. Without multiple tools (multiple water supplies and non-flow alternatives), local water managers cannot implement water supply and resource projects that benefit their areas.

The board’s Dismissal of Department of Water Resources science

At the fourth and final public hearing on the SED, DWR testified that the SED science was deeply flawed, making inappropriate use of a “Flow Only” approach, and passing the buck to GSAs to prevent damage to the state’s aquifers. These criticisms from DWR echoed thousands of public comments from scientists, elected officials, conservationists, community leaders, and food producers.

The board’s dismissal of settlement proposals

At Stockton East Water District, we have partnered with Oakdale Irrigation District and South San Joaquin Irrigation District to optimize our local water resources. We have delivered surface water to the urban area of Stockton for decades to restore groundwater levels. The three Districts developed a comprehensive settlement proposal that included sustainable flows for fish, predator suppression and habitat improvement all based on using scientific analysis and a thorough understanding of fishery needs. However, our settlement proposal was rejected by the state on the basis that we don’t have additional flows.

Conclusions

It is clear that the board is ignoring the express intent of the legislature to allow local agencies to manage their water resources, both groundwater and surface water. Since groundwater cannot be sustained without surface water resources, and the board is requiring at least 40 percent of that surface water, the ability of local agencies to manage their resources is stripped away. Without that ability, the board could take on the groundwater management responsibility in less than six months.

It is equally clear that the board has ignored DWR and the entire water user community recommendations, as well as any scientific data and local achievements that challenge the board’s pre-determination that increased flow is the only tool available.

Impacts to Stockton and San Joaquin County

Historically, Stockton East has treated and delivered as much as 80 percent of Stockton’s drinking water, and supports 95,000 acres of prime farmland. Assuming the proposed flows (Phase 1 and 2) are implemented by the board, we would have no water to deliver to either of these beneficial uses. The impact of the board’s planned actions would devastate our economy and our community.